Why Are You There?
By the time Abyss had ascended into the ranks of god-tier games—no longer confined to Korea, but played by people all over the world—the Abyss Pro League, held every season, had become something closer to an annual festival that only grew larger with each passing year.
Domestic leagues, overseas leagues—wherever the game was played, there were always people who preferred watching matches to competing in them. Even those who never touched the game themselves often still tuned in for the games.
Needless to say, the streamer Ririyang—Da-hee—was one of those who found the matches genuinely interesting.
Unlike the hardcore fans, though, she didn't watch every single game of a season. She was the type who only caught the bigger, more important ones.
Which made landing the league broadcasting rights a massive windfall for her. From now on, she wouldn't have to watch alone—she could flip on her stream and take in the matches with her viewers.
For a streamer, it was basically free content. All she had to do was watch the games with genuine enthusiasm. Fill a reasonable amount of airtime, pick up the occasional donation about the match itself, and you had a content cash cow with almost no effort required.
Broadcasting rights, however, were not easy to come by. They were a privilege granted only to carefully vetted streamers—and on Twish, you had to be an official Abyss Partner Streamer recognized by Ionix before you could rebroadcast league matches on your channel.
Ririyang had sworn, from the day she first hit go live, that she would earn those rights someday. Not long ago she had finally become a Partner Streamer—and then, at last, she had secured the broadcasting rights as well.
The cause was obvious: the relentless growth her channel had been riding for some time now. From the baseline size of her streams to her Vtube subscriber count to her monthly income, every metric had been climbing at a terrifying rate. Would you believe that the money she had made in the last three months alone rivaled everything she had earned over her entire streaming career before that?
And the starting point of it all had been that tournament. Winning a major competition had set the snowball rolling, and it had only kept gathering speed.
It's all thanks to Teacher.
Ririyang pictured Kayak in her mind and broke into a goofy, helpless smile.
Whether Kayak had intended it or not, the green lights for her stream just kept coming—and when the person responsible for that was Kayak, there was no reason not to feel fond of her.
Which was why she had tried to set up a meal and drinks today, as a small way of paying her back. But Kayak already had plans.
Left with no other option, Ririyang decided to put her newly won broadcasting rights to use and watch the match with her viewers instead.
Her first rebroadcast was the opening match of the season. Considering how many viewers that alone would pull in… as a substitute for meeting Kayak, it wasn't half bad.
Viewers flooded in at a rapid clip. Now that was the power of an opening match.
"Welcome, everyone—thank you! Yep, today we're watching FG versus Optimum."
She ran through introductions of the players, the heroes they mainly used, their win rates, and the rest. Then came ban-and-pick.
"Whoa!"
Watching the process with glittering eyes, Ririyang couldn't hold back her awe.
"Oh—Camilla has been picked!"
"First time in league history. No one has selected this hero in years."
"I never thought we'd see this at a tournament… and that skin looks incredible."
"Anyone planning to queue solo queue today should be careful. Honestly, you might want to skip ranked altogether."
"Camilla's out, chat!"
Ririyang crowed, her voice full of pure delight. Camilla had become a familiar hero to her by now—she'd even climbed into Ririyang's personal top three most-played.
But Camilla had never been a hero well-suited to the league. That was why Ririyang had known next to nothing about her for so long.
She had started watching league matches regularly not long after picking up Abyss, even if she wasn't very good at the game herself. Camilla, however, had never appeared in the league at all—so learning her skill set or traits had been nearly impossible.
Ionix's abandoned bastard. Pretty trash. That had been Camilla's public image for years. But the moment she showed up in the league, the conversation changed.
Pros never picked anything on a whim. Her presence in the league meant her performance was guaranteed to a certain degree—and that meant Camilla's standing was about to rise.
The viewers were every bit as stunned as Ririyang. Shock all around.
More than a few of them mentioned Kayak by name. Ririyang's stream shared a decent chunk of its audience with Kayak's, after all.
I wish we could've watched this together…
Seeing Kayak's name in chat, Ririyang found herself thinking of her again. What kind of reaction would she have had if they'd been watching side by side?
The regret lingered, but there was nothing to be done about it.
As a poor substitute, Ririyang simply hoped Camilla would put on a good show—and at last, the match began.
The match unfolded in a thoroughly one-sided fashion.
The two teams had never been in the same weight class to begin with. Fusion Gaming was the undisputed number-one team in Korea—a top-tier squad that held its own on the world stage—while Optimum Gaming was a mid-tier team that had only just clawed its way out of the bottom ranks.
Optimum had earned the nickname "Big Game Hunters" for occasionally snatching major upsets, but even that reputation wasn't holding up today.
Coldly put, Fusion Gaming was simply better at the game itself.
"And Min-hyeong picks off River on the approach path! He catches that tiny window in a standoff with absolutely perfect timing."
"His form lately has been incredible. Plays only the absolute top-tier players can pull off, and he's doing them without hesitation."
"And on the side lane—a two-versus-one dribble! Ha-jun looking like he refuses to be outdone!"
Player after player put up solid performances. That was the hallmark of a strong team.
Super plays kept stacking up, the win condition locking into place with iron certainty—and yet, even amid all of that, one thing still stood out.
"Camilla! There is simply no stopping Jun-hyeok's Camilla!"
"He's roaming the battlefield like it's his own living room."
"And the fact that he's dancing while he does it just makes it more infuriating. Walking around mid-dance—Optimum must be sick of looking at that."
Camilla. More precisely—Lee Jun-hyeok's Camilla.
In the hands of the best player in the country, Camilla play approached pure art. Precise yet daring mechanical execution left the Optimum players completely unable to keep up. Even from the outside, you could feel how much trouble they were having.
And yet Ririyang found something oddly familiar about Jun-hyeok's Camilla.
More precisely—his Camilla looked a lot like Kayak's. The build, the playstyle, the overall feel of it.
But she said nothing. She knew perfectly well how vicious and unforgiving pro league fandoms could be. If she had said what she was thinking out loud, the hate wouldn't have stopped at her—it would have dragged Kayak down with her.
The chat proved her point. Ririyang nodded to herself, glad she had kept her mouth shut.
"And that's the game! Fusion Gaming takes the win!"
"MVP of Set One goes to Lee Jun-hyeok on Camilla."
"A truly impressive performance. Not just from one player—the whole team was flawless."
As the Set One replay rolled, the players were given a short break—and the broadcast feed began cycling through a variety of other shots.
Short animations. Behind-the-scenes player stories. And then the live crowd, watching from the stands.
People who had written out team cheers. Cosplay groups. A little kid holding a picket sign.
The camera lingered on the young girl with the picket for quite a while. Maybe because she looked so cute—elementary-school age, roughly—or maybe because of what was written on the sign.
In neat, careful lettering, the picket read: Camilla is the best! The handwriting was far too elegant for a child to have done herself. Someone must have written it for her.
"She's adorable, right?"
The girl was waving her picket left and right with pure, unfiltered excitement at being at the arena. Just watching her was enough to warm the heart—a soft, fond smile passed across the faces of everyone looking on.
And then it happened. Mid-wave, the girl suddenly froze.
Someone had taken the empty seat beside her.
A woman who gently stroked the child's hair, took the picket from her hands, and set it on her own lap.
Hair as white as fresh snow. Skin that looked almost pale. Sapphire-blue eyes holding a quiet, unmistakable affection for the child.
Everyone held their breath. The casters on site fell silent mid-sentence. The entire crowd closed their mouths as one.
A hush settled over the once-noisy arena. And yet the woman seemed to notice nothing strange at all—she simply kept stroking the girl's hair.
Then she turned her head and looked straight into the camera.
Ririyang, who had been watching with a growing sense of dread, sucked in a sharp breath.
Why—why is she there.
It was a small mercy that she managed not to scream.